Richard Ashbery has struck again – and again – and uploaded two more videos to YouTube.

The graphics output of Danish programmer Jan Vibe, which used to feature regularly in the pages (and cover discs) of Acorn User magazine, were always a delight to behold – but these programs were written to run on the RISC OS computers of the time, designed with the type of displays in mind that we typically used with them, and the resolutions and colour depths that the machines could cope with.

Richard Ashbery – who publishes an Artworks graphic of the month on his ‘Artworks art works’ website – has spent some time exploring Jan’s code and updating the programs to run at 1920×1080 on his Raspberry Pi, then recording the output and uploading the resulting videos to YouTube.Continue reading »

Not content with revisiting some of Jan Vibe’s old graphics programs and turning them into videos on YouTube, Richard Ashbery has gone to work updating another program by the prolific Danish developer, whose many and varied graphical ditties appeared regularly in the pages of Acorn User. This time, it’s Jan’s animated clock, updated for modern hardware and (widescreen) displays.

The program runs full screen, and presents the user with a clock face showing the time – updated each second, keeping it in line with the current time according to the computer’s clock. The whole program is written in BBC BASIC, and takes up just fifty lines, including a couple of REM statements and some blank lines.

Those who have been on the RISC OS scene long enough to remember our printed magazines – Acorn User in particular – will undoubtedly remember the graphics delights provided by Danish programmer Jan Vibe, whose programs featured regularly as type-in listings in the magazine (and later ready to run from the cover discs).

Richard Ashbery, who is well known for his work with ArtWorks2, and publishes a graphic of the month created with the application on his website, has taken a look at many of Jan’s old programs, and made the necessary code changes to get them to run on modern ARM hardware – more specifically, the Raspberry Pi running at 1920×1080.Continue reading »